April 29
A majority of Iraqis say their country is in
dismal economic shape and getting worse, with 3
of 4 respondents also describing security in the
country as poor, according to a poll conducted
by the International Republican Institute. The
findings show that Iraqis believe jobs are
harder to find, electrical service is poorer,
and corruption has increased dramatically since
last year.

April 30 The question hanging over the parliamentary votes
last weekend was whether the elected leaders,
most of them now barricaded inside the protected
Green Zone, could do anything to stop the slide
toward anarchy and civil war.

May 1
A suicide bomber detonated an
explosive-laden car near a US army patrol
killing one Iraqi civilian and wounding two
others in al-Askandariya.

May 2
U.S. private security contractors on
Tuesday shot dead an Iraqi ambulance crew member
as the ambulance approached a site in northern
Baghdad where the contractors` armed vehicle had
been disabled by a roadside bomb, a U.S.
military spokesman said.

May 3
An official at Yarmouk hospital in
Baghdad said its morgue was full after receiving
65 corpses over the past 3 days of people who
mostly died from gunshot wounds. The victims
included 3 schoolteachers.

May 4 At least 13
civilians died in an air assault by US forces in
Ramadi just an hour after a bomber killed nine
people outside a Baghdad court.

May 5
Kurdish villagers are fleeing their
homes in northern Iraq after shelling and
incursions by Iranian forces and a massive
build-up of Turkish troops as both militaries
move to crush separatist guerrillas.

The IAEA report on Iran`s
nuclear programme has
generated rhetoric from both the United States
and Europe that seems well beyond that which the
content seems to merit. Once the United States
introduces a
Chapter VII resolution,
even in
draft form, war
with Iran is all but assured. If the
Russians and Chinese
balk over the imposition of Chapter VII-linked
measures against Iran, as they have indicated
they will, then the Bush administration will
simply declare that the security council has
become impotent and irrelevant in dealing with
threats that it has itself declared to exist,
and, as such, the United States, not wanting to
have its own national security interests so
hijacked, will `have no choice` but to move
forward void of any security council endorsement
or authorisation. This
model of action directly parallels that
undertaken by the US and UK regarding Iraq, and
has been strongly alluded to in recent
statements made by Vice-President Cheney, the US
ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton,
and Rice. This is a very tense and dangerous
situation that, as it currently stands, seems to
be spinning close toward yet another needless
war in the Middle East.

*This
estimate is only of English language media
reported deaths. A peer reviewed
epidemiological survey (Roberts
et al., The Lancet, Vol 364 Issue 9448 pp 1857
1864) estimated that in the 18 months
following the invasion 100, 000 excess deaths or
more have occurred. Violence accounted for most
of the excess deaths and air strikes from
coalition forces accounted for most violent
deaths. Criticisms of IBC methodology can be
found at
medialens